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Questions to Think Deeply On

Something I’m planning to do on a semi-regular basis this year is to set aside time to think deeply about important questions.

These are questions about the future: what kind of person you want to be for the remaining years of your life and what you want to experience, achieve and see happen during those years.

While we know questions like this are important, you can’t get a comprehensive and meaningful answer unless you really set aside some time and focus exclusively on one or one set of related questions.

So the exercise is to sit down and brainstorm or riff on one of these questions for something like 30 minutes to an hour or more.

So far I have these questions:

What do you believe in? What are your values? Write them down but choose your words carefully and really give it some thought.

Critically examine everything in your life but imagine you are looking at someone else. Analyze your situation in detail, but from the perspective of a total stranger who has just learned of your immediate circumstances and knows nothing else about you.

Peter Thiel’s contrarian question: What important truth do very few people agree with you on? Or alternatively the “business version”, What valuable company is nobody building?

Imagine your own funeral. Your friends, loved ones and members of your community are present. What do you want them to say about you when you’re dead and gone? What kind of impression do you want to leave on the world?

What is so important to you that you are willing to undergo extreme pain and hardship to achieve it?

This is a unique time in history and there is unprecedented opportunity to do what we want with our lives. No one has ever had so much freedom and freedom of choice as the English speaker with an internet connection in 2017.

You can decide exactly what you want to experience for the next 60, 70, 80 years and realistically have that happen. But what do you want? It’s worth spending the time to figure it out.

Andras

Possibly out of all your posts, this one has been the most impactful. Since reading it, I’ve finally started consistently reflecting on my days, weeks, months. Thanks for the impetus buddy :)